Community Tasting Notes 65

• Cailles wrote: 93 points

  May 19, 2022 - Scarecrow - Complete Vertical 2003-2019 + 2x PNV: Non blind. Not decanted. It is obvious, why Scarecrow has the status it has. This is truly one of the very best Napa wines. A few observations: 1) The absolute highlight in almost all vintages is Scarecrow’s ability to combine aromatic density and intensity with absolute weightlessness. Very, very few Napa Valley wines achieve that kind of weightlessness - other than Harlan, probably no other wine that consistently over the vintages. More recent vintages are of course a touch less weightless (due to their youth) but are as light and airy as any wine in the respective vintage. 2) The wines have a lot of substance with a flavor profile with lots of red berries and floral notes complementing the dark Cabernet fruits, always lots of earthy minerality and some herbs and sensuous, luxurious oaky notes reminding me of Cheval Blanc. 3) While probably Bordeaux-esque for Napa standards in its appearance, it is still distinctively a Napa wine. In the early years, I even found a touch too much ripeness and some alcohol heat in the wines which doesn’t seem to be an issue in the vintages of this decade. 4) These wines all are great to drink, only the structured vintages of 2010, 2013 as well as the 2016 were not really open for business and would have needed decanting. All others showed great right out of the bottle.
  
  TN: Less complex, cooler, fresher in style on the nose. On the palate beautiful, well-defined blue and red fruit with some ripe black fruit mixed in. A wonderful fruit/floral profile. Not too ripe. Again weightless, but not as weightless as some others, again fine, balanced, fresh, light, creamy but with a slightly short finish. Overall still a very good wine but not on par with the other vintages. The highlight, which was the very fresh and cool profile, changed into a more ripe and less intriguing expression with time in the glass. At first I was at 94/95 pts, towards the end rather 92-ish.
  
  Decanting: Not decanted. I wouldn’t decant it.

  Comment

• G_H wrote: 92 points

  May 12, 2022 - A complete Scarecrow vertical: This was the only wine that was quite holding back on the aromatics. needed some time to develop had a good structure but also developed more ripe aromas and the alcohol wasn't as perfectly integrated as in other vintages.

  Comment

• AllRed wrote: 94 points

  April 15, 2022 - Friday Group Brown Bag Tasting (R&D's): Double blind. Notes of kirsch, plum and black fruit. Fine, but slightly firm tannins and flavors of chocolate and black fruit. Balanced; long finish. Guessed 2012 Napa cab sauv. (R&R)

  Comment

• starkravingmad Likes this wine: 98 points

  December 17, 2021 - Spectacular - full, smooth, fruity. Christmas dinner favorite among the group. Preferred over Bond, LaTour

  Comment

• fcxj wrote: 90 points

  November 27, 2021 - Overpowering jammy fruit.

  Comment

Pro Reviews 2

Wine Definition

• Vintage 2008
• Type Red
• Producer Scarecrow
• Varietal Cabernet Sauvignon
• Designation n/a
• Vineyard n/a
• Country USA
• Region California
• SubRegion Napa Valley
• Appellation Rutherford

Community Holdings

• Pending Delivery 27 (1%)
• In Cellars 2,049 (58%)
• Consumed 1,464 (41%)

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